We walked down to the end of the dock, and each person sits, and jumps in the water. We all made our way down the dock to the start, while staying in line. About every 3 seconds, an athlete started. I made a faux pas and bought new goggles the day before and wore them without trying them out first. Fortunately, they turned out to be awesome. I remember thinking, "that's how goggles are supposed to fit". From the beginning, I was passing people left and right. This continued until about half way through the swim. I continued pretty steady with four strokes, breath. Once in a while, I'd do 2, then breath jsut for some extra oxygen. Since I didn't really have to worry about sighting too much, it was easy to just keep going. I tried to find some feet to draft, but everytime I did, they turned out to be slower than me, so I'd pass them. The final 500 yds or so I kept up with a guy that was pretty quick. At the exit, there was a nice little run up some stairs. But they turned out not to hurt me as much as I had anticipated. I read something about kicking more the last few minutes of the swim in order to get more blood the legs and make that transition easier. I think it worked. I saw my Mom as I ran into transition, and that made me smile.

I hadn't done an Oly since September last year, so I think I swam a little slower than was necessary. Not much, but I wasn't sure how this race was going to play out, so I played it safe.

46/326
13/61 AG

This was pretty quick given the size of transition and where my bike was. They made me go the long way to my rack when I came in.

As I got to my bike, I noticed my Garmin said battery low. Arrgghh. I guess I'll be riding and running blind. I headed out down the few side streets, then up the on ramp to 27. It was really strange to ride on the highway, but kind of cool at the same time. How often do you get to do that. I read about other people disliking it due to the traffic (only one or tow lanes were blocked off, cars in the other), but it didn't bother me in the least. I stayed to the right because I knew there would be lots of people passing me since I started so early. I just kept truckin along as best I could. The way out was a little faster than the way back it seemed. Although, with no Garmin info I don't know if this is truly the case. There were a few good downhills/flats that I was able to pick up some speed and even pass people. The turnaround was much easier than I thought. I feared that it would be too narrow/short and I'd have to get off my bike. No problems. The way back I began to feel my knee pain again. Since I had taken some advil before the race, I didn't think it would be an issue. It got worse and worse as the ride went on. By mile 19 I was ready to be off the bike. I couldn't stand it anymore. And on top of the pain, I was going even slower which frutrated me even more. I began to pay more attention to it and noticed that it didn't really hurt when I sat straight up. Of course that's not very efficient, so I kept trying to get low. After noticing this, it occured to me that I never did get a bike fitting. Hmmm.... maybe I'm just not positioned properly? So I rode the last 6 miles sitting up like I was riding a beach cruiser. At that point, I didn't even care, as long as my knee/hip didn't hurt.

Get a bike fitting, and maybe a new saddle too. I'm working on more time on the bike. Gettin better though. For this course, and the pain, I'm fairly pleased.

I took the time to put socks on for this one. I don't usually, but I didn't want to take any chances that my feet would blister. I need to work up to 6 miles sockless in training first.

66/326
20/61 AG

I started out and took a minute to gather myself and wait for my running legs to come back. I remembered that this course was pretty flat, so I was hoping I could hammer it out and make up some time. At this point, I thought that my watch had broken because it seemed that the time was running slow (this happened to my last watch). So without that, and without the garmin, I had no idea how fst/slow I was going, what time it was, how close I was to my goal, or how fast I needed to go in order to make it. I tried to run a steady pace to keep from accidentally blowing up before the turnaround. I was waiting for my friend Robin to pass by since she started about 60 people in front of me. I finally saw her right around mile 3, just before the turnaround. I tried to calculate how far behind I was by counting my time back to that same spot. Calcualtions are difficult when your heartrate is in the red. But I figured that I still had a chance at beating her overall. With about 2 miles to go, it began to rain. Perfect timing. Then I saw my family, and my Kaydence cheering for me in the rain. With a quarter mile left a guy passed me and said "come on, you have to make this last stretch count". I said, ok, lets's go, and tried to chase him down. I didn't catch him, but I did make a good last effort. I finished with absolutely no idea what time it was, or what my race time was. It could have been 4 hours for all I knew.

Not knowing my pace. I've gotten used to seeing it every time I run, and it's hard, especially in a race when your HR is already very high, to judge.

I walked back to look for my family. Apparently they decided to go hide under the tents, so more walking. I finally found them and they all told me that Robin was just ahead of me on the run. When I found her, she said she was having cramping issues on the run, and I whined about my knee on the bike. Since it was still raining, and I wanted to shower before checking out of the hotel, we headed out right out. For the first time, I left a race having not a clue of my performance. And that was ok. The day was about giving it a good solid effort without killing myself. I think I accomplished that.


Not having the garmin on the bike and run. Walking all over Chattanooga the day before. Knee/hip pain on the bike.


Later that night I looked up the results and saw that I beat Robin by about 2 minutes. This was astonishing because she was always much better on the bike, which killed me. After analyzing some, it seems my transitions times were about 2 minutes faster overall. Interesting. I also noticed her run was a couple minutes slower, but remembered her saying something about some stomach issues out there. The way I see it, transitions, nutrition, and pacing played a vital role this race. Finally, the things I'm good at (the non-tri-sport things) gave me an obvious advantage. This isn't to say that I don't need to work on things. I still have a lot to improve all around. But it's just nice to see that it's not always how fast you are, or how strong you are.

All in all, a good race. I really do like this venue, and the volunteers and spectators make it really enjoyable. Everything was really well organized. This is a new PR for me, but hopefully it will get beaten out by my next Oly in a few weeks. I used this as a test to see where I was, so I can set a higher goal for myself next time. I learned a lot from this race, and sometimes that means more than having a "great" race.